Andreas Rienow

• Jun. Prof. Dr.
• Professor at Ruhr University Bochum

Rapid urbanization and climate impacts have raised concerns about the emergence and aggravation of urban heat island effects. In Africa, studies have focused more on big cities due to their growing populations and high climate impact, while mid-sized cities remain under-studied, with limited comparative insights into their distinct characteristics....

Rapid urbanization and climate impacts have raised concerns about the emergence and aggravation of urban heat island effects. In Africa, studies have focused more on big cities due to their growing populations and high socio-economic functions, while mid-sized cities remain understudied, with limited comparative insights into their distinct charact...

Accurately and objectively evaluating the spatiotemporal dynamic changes in CO2 emissions is significant for human sustainable development. However, traditional CO2 emissions estimates, typically derived from national or provincial energy statistics, often lack spatial information. To develop a more accurate spatiotemporal model for estimating CO2...

Small reservoirs are increasingly common across Africa. They provide decentralised access to water and support farmer-led irrigation, in addition to contributing towards mitigating the impacts of climate change. Water quality monitoring is essential to ensure the safe use of water and to understand the impact of the environment and landuse on water...

This study analysed urban expansion of Abeokuta within the framework of an economic development cluster initiative pivoted on the city. It addressed the trend, distance, direction and pattern of urban expansion to provide baseline information on targeted supports and interventions for the viability of the initiative. Previous studies have analysed...

The demands for growth and prosperity in developing countries have prompted Ogun State to initiate six economic development clusters oriented around its urban areas. However, little attention has been given to the environmental impact of these clusters in relation to temperature change and thermal consequences. Serving as a baseline study for the A...

The increased use of nighttime lights (NTL) to assess infrastructure implementation and socioeconomic development highlights the potential of this open data source, often used as a proxy indicator of economic dynamics. Many studies focus on supra-national levels and the quantification of light emissions, generating assumptions regarding development...

Despite the reliance of various economic sectors on a healthy environment, anthropogenic factors and climate change occurrences continue to degrade it. Monitoring and protecting the environment has thus become a major goal for various stakeholders. The development of web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) platforms for geo-visualizing enviro...

The Syrian war, which commenced in 2011, transformed the Damascus real estate market due to heightened insecurity and tenure disputes. Using the hedonic price models, including 2411 housing transactions over the period 2010–2022, this study aims to understand the spatial dynamics of the real estate market in wartime. Our findings indicate that war...

Ensuring secure tenure rights is crucial for stability in urban Syria, particularly in communities affected by the crisis since 2011. This has resulted in social stratification and spatial disparities related to property rights, including fragmentation, unequal access to facilities, land loss, and limited spatial justice. Understanding the interact...

The image of Earth at Night from space has become iconic, but we are still in the dark when it comes to the question of to what extent different light source types contribute to city light emissions. Our team of citizen scientists used the Nachtlichter app to count and classify 234,044 light sources over a total area of 22 km2 during 2021. We find...

In post-war environments, property valuation encounters obstacles stemming from widespread destruction, population displacement, and complex legal frameworks. This study addresses post-war property valuation by integrating war-related considerations into the ISO 19152 Land Administration Domain Model, resulting in a valuation information model for...

Artificial intelligence (AI) began to make its way into geoinformation science several decades ago and since then has constantly brought forth new cutting-edge approaches for diverse geographic use cases. AI and deep learning methods have become essential approaches for land use and land cover (LULC) classifications, which are important in urban pl...

Education on spatial data infrastructures is an important building block of study programs focusing on spatial data. The focus is on equipping students with essential skills for future contributions to spatial data infrastructure development and application. Despite a wide range of available teaching materials, their reuse is hindered by a lack of...

Rapid urbanization in Africa and Asia is responsible for 80% of all global cropland losses caused by urban expansion. The lack of data has made it difficult to estimate the impact of successive land policies on arable land loss. In this chapter, Landsat satellite imagery was used to examine the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of...

In recent years, numerous multitemporal global land use and land cover products have been published acting as valuable source for training spatially explicit geosimulation models forecasting urban growth. However, there is a notable gap in research that specifically addresses the sensitivity of models traing with those data sets when it comes to re...

Many wetlands in East Africa are farmed and wetland reservoirs are used for irrigation, livestock, and fishing. Water quality and agriculture have a mutual influence on each other. Turbidity is a principal indicator of water quality and can be used for otherwise unmonitored water sources. Low-cost turbidity sensors improve in-situ coverage and enab...

Straßen, Wohnbausiedlungen und Industrie versiegeln viele Großstadtflächen, nicht nur in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Auf Luftbildern ist das leicht zu erkennen, aber dennoch mühsam auszuwerten. Daher haben Bochumer Forschende eine Helferin angelernt.

The trends of evapotranspiration and runoff in hydrological basins are heavily dependent on climatic patterns and their amounts vary as a result of changes in anthropogenic activities. Muringato basin situated in the Upper Tana River Basin, in Kenya has experienced changes in climatic patterns and increased anthropogenic activities. These changes n...

The trends of evapotranspiration and runoff in hydrological basins are heavily dependent on climatic patterns and their amounts vary as a result of changes in anthropogenic activities. Muringato basin situated in the Upper Tana River Basin, in Kenya has experienced changes in climatic patterns and increased anthropogenic activities. These changes n...

The contemporary food system pushes agriculture to a globalized value-chain, affecting landscapes , resource access, and institutional arrangements. Institutions operating in Africa adopt development corridors to integrate multisector investments and induce export-driven primary sector, leading to massive land deals, also known as land-grabbing. Or...

Monitoring and protecting the environment is a major goal for various stakeholders due to the continuous degradation by anthropogenic factors and climate change occurrences. Developing web-based geographic information system (GIS) platforms have been proposed as one environmental monitoring tool because of their easy operability, accessibility, and...

The study aims at the calibration, validation, implementation and future simulation of urban sprawl in the Ruhr until 2030 based on global urban input data sets. For the first time, historic OSM data is utilized for the implementation of an urban cellular automaton. The urban CA SLEUTH UGMr has been calibrated with the Global Human Settlement Layer...

Tropical highlands remain a challenging target for remote sensing due to their high heterogeneity of the landscape and frequent cloud cover, causing a shortage of high-quality and reliable comprehensive data on land use and land cover on a local or regional scale. These, however, are urgently needed by local stakeholders and decisionmakers. This ap...

Germany aims to reduce soil sealing to under 30 hectares per day by 2030 to address negative environmental impacts from the expansion of impervious surfaces. As cities adapt to climate change, spatially explicit very high-resolution information about the distribution of impervious surfaces is becoming increasingly important for urban planning and d...

Title Flood vulnerability mapping using geospatial technique and analytic hierarchy process multi-criteria analysis in the urban commune of Dédougou, Burkina Faso Abstract The urban commune of Dédougou, due to its geographical position, climate, soil types and topography, is exposed to the risk of natural disasters caused by flooding. The objective...

To avoid wetland degradation and promote sustainable wetlands use, decision-makers and managing institutions need quantified and spatially explicit information on wetland ecosystem condition for policy development and wetland management. Remote sensing holds a significant potential for wetland mapping, inventorying, and monitoring. The Wetland Use...

Metropolitan research requires multidisciplinary perspectives in order to do justice to the complexities of metropolitan regions. This volume provides a scholarly and accessible overview of key methods and approaches in metropolitan research from a uniquely broad range of disciplines including architectural history, art history, heritage conservati...

Im Dezember 2021 wurde ein Calliope mini Mikrocontroller mit einer SpaceX Falcon 9 Rakete im Rahmen der SpaceX Cargo Resupply Mission 24 zur Internationalen Raumstation transportiert. Dort wurd er mit der Astro Pi IR-Hardware der ESA gekoppelt. Der Beitrag führt in die im September 2021 gestartete „Space Hack“-Aktion an deutschen Schulen ein, die f...

Evapotranspiration and runoff being the major outflows in a water balance help in accounting for the water losses from the land surface and the amount of water available to replenish the streamflow. Their trends over time are influenced by the changes in Land Use and Land Cover (LULC), and climatic patterns. Muringato basin located in the Upper Tan...

The app “Columbus Eye” is an Augmented Reality app using Earth Observation (EO) from the ISS and other satellites in a total of 11 different topics of various STEM school subjects. The apps are developed in Unity with the Vuforia extension and additional scripts in C#. Almost all of the apps are incorporated into printable worksheets built on curre...

The app “Columbus Eye” is an Augmented Reality app using Earth Observation (EO) from the ISS and other satellites in a total of 11 different topics of various STEM school subjects. The apps are developed in Unity with the Vuforia extension and additional scripts in C#. Almost all of the apps are incorporated into printable worksheets built on curre...

The challenge Remote Sensing (RS) has been brought into secondary education in the “Remote Sensing in Schools” (FIS) project since 2007 (Voß et al. 2007). Over the years, a growing number of flash modules was created that dealt with the basics of RS and a variety of applications to topics from geography, but also physics, biology, mathematics, and...

Metropolitan research requires multidisciplinary perspectives in order to do justice to the complexities of metropolitan regions. This volume provides a scholarly and accessible overview of key methods and approaches in metropolitan research from a uniquely broad range of disciplines including architectural history, art history, heritage conservati...

Earth observation is an interdisciplinary field of application. This makes it ideal for supporting natural science education in schools. Understanding satellite data can enable students to see more than just “beautiful images”. They can gain insights into an exciting field of application of many natural- and computer science fundamentals. In recent...

The failure of tailings dams causes ecological damage and economic loss and can cause casualties. The simulation of the tailings’ spill path in the event of tailings dam failures (TDFs) can mitigate the risk by the provision of spatial information for disaster prevention and preparedness. In order to close the gap between basic one-dimensional spil...

The project KEPLER ISS has brought ISS-based and satellite-based remote sensing data into school lessons since 2017. The first few apps were standalones, but with an expanding variety of topics, these were combined into one app named “Columbus Eye” (Rienow et al. 2020) after the initial project of the same name that is known to many teachers throug...

Growing metropolitan areas have potential to affect the climate of local neighborhoods and thus become a hot topic in regional planning. The study is a contribution to the climate change related land cover simulation efforts in Germany. It investigates future land consumption rates and population growth rates keeping goal 11 of the United Nation’s...

While real estate is a significant pillar of stability among communities, it can also be the most vulnerable to disasters triggered by natural or man-made hazards, which cause the spatial dimension of metropolitan areas to be disturbed due to critical variables, such as land loss, societal collapse, and changes in population distribution resulting...

Post-industrial areas in Europe, such as the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan region in Germany, include cultural heritage sites fostering local and regional identities with the industrial past. Today, these landmarks are popular places of interest for visitors. In addition to portable camera devices, low-budget ultra-lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles, s...

Ground movement can be observed from space using radar interferometry. This works essentially by measuring the distance and angle between a satellite and a spot on the ground twice and subtracting them. This uses the transit time of radar waves, sent from the satellite to the ground and reflected back. Very precise measurements and calculations usi...

Persisting hunger and malnourishment continue to be a problem of global concern, which recent climate change, as well as environmental and socio-economic crises and their impacts along the food chain further exacerbate. Earth observation (EO) holds the capacity to deliver large temporal and spatial coverage information that allow for better decisio...

Two months after the hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Barbuda, the construction of a new international airport led to accusations of degrading the Codrington Lagoon National Park and contravening the conventions of the Ramsar Program. Scientists have analyzed the aftermath with respect to historical legacies, disaster capitalism, manifestation of clim...

Teaching Earth Observation teaches more than Earth Observation! It includes topics from Geography, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and a lot of Computer Science. more than that, EO teaches spatial, critical and analytical thinking, data literacymany technical skills and problem-oriented learning - if used right in class. The Augmented Real...

For the purpose of expanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education with remote sensing (RS) data and methods, an augmented reality (AR) app was developed in combination with a worksheet and lesson plan. Data from the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) was searched for topics applicable to STEM curricula, whic...

Urban sprawl is ubiquitous with a complex network of driving forces and human and natural impacts on various scales of the coupled human-environment urban system. In Germany, a land consumption of 30 ha per day is envisaged. In that regard, the effect of growing metropolitan areas on the climate of local neighborhoods becomes more and more a topic...

Developing green infrastructure (GI) has drawn increasing attention as a strategic planning approach for advancing urban sustainability. The connectivity of green spaces, a central principle of GI, has been considered in planning studies regarding its structure and functions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery; however, as...

Academic performance (AP) is explained by a multitude of factors, principally by those related to socioeconomic, cultural, and educational environments. However, AP is less understood from a spatial perspective. The aim of this study was to investigate a methodology using a machine learning approach to determine which answers from a questionnaire-b...

Developing green infrastructure (GI) has drawn increasing attention as a strategic planning approach for advancing urban sustainability. The connectivity of green spaces, a central principle of GI, has been considered in planning studies regarding its structure and functions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery; however, as...

Elevation and visual data from Chang’E-2, Mars Viking, and MOLA were transformed into 3D models and environments using unity and unreal engine to be implemented in augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications, respectively. The workflows for the two game development engines and the two purposes overlap, but have significant differences stem...

Learning videos can be concise learning packages that offer a wide range of possibilities when it comes to present topics in an up-to-date way and disseminating them in a variety of learning environments. Videos are already a primary source of information in our society; however, few examples convey earth observation topics. Over recent decades, nu...

Green infrastructure (GI) has a cooling effect owing to shading and evapotranspiration and therefore has a climate regulating function within metropolitan areas. Urban parks are a type of GI that act as park cool islands (PCIs) and play a major role in mitigating the surface urban heat island. This study aims to (1) investigate the status quo of th...

In this article [1], the wrong figures appeared as Listings 1 to 4; the Listings 1, 2, 3 and 4 should have been appeared as shown. The in-text reference citations has been arranged in numerical ascending order and the corresponding list has been arranged accordingly.

Background Various applications have been developed worldwide to contain and to combat the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this context, spatial information is always of great significance. The aim of this study is to describe the development of a Web GIS based on open source products for the collection and analysis of COVID-19 cases...

Unsustainable development paths have reached critical levels in Europe. In recent years, in cities, urbanization has been contributing to the intensification of urban heat islands. To analyze the development of surface urban heat islands (SUHI) in Europe in the last few years, the present study combines the land surface temperature (LST) from MODIS...

Cellular automat on (CA) are important tools that provide insight into urbanization dynamics and possible future patterns. The calibration process is the core theme of these models. This study compares the performance of two common machine‐learning classifiers, random forest (RF), and support vector machines (SVM), to calibrate CA. It focuses on th...

By 2050, two-third of the world’s population will live in cities. In this study, we develop a framework for analyzing urban growth-related imperviousness in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) from the 1980s to date using Landsat data. For the baseline 2017-time step, official geodata was extracted to generate labelled data for ten classes, including thre...

Lake Erie is a main source of fresh water for about 11 million people in the USA and Canada. It has vast beaches used for recreational purposes, and a significant commercial fishing industry. In 2011, it had the worst bloom on record, followed by an even worse one in 2015. In 2013, 2017, and 2019, the bloom severity was also at high levels. In 2014...

This article is a continuation of an overview of the contemporary resources for Earth Observation (EO) education for secondary schools. The themes covered by the sequel are the main EO education initiatives supported by international, EU and national organizations, outreach activities, citizen scientists’ projects and free and open source software...

“We set out to explore the Moon and instead discovered the Earth“ Apollo 8 Astronaut and Earthrise picture photographer Bill Anders’ perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from Space onto our home planet. The presentation will demonstrate how the technology and the application of remote sensing from space, i.e. from the ISS, can e...

Indigenous communities in the Amazon suffer from lack of access to basic services, such as electricity. Due to their isolation and difficult access it is challenging to acquire data on their location, numbers and needs, which would enable adequate development plans. Earth observation (EO), in combination with participatory mapping can support the c...

Facing global challenges, a qualified education in remote sensing technologies needs to start in school to sensitise teachers and thus young people for ecological issues and develop their technological skills. Remote sensing is part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curricular topics, all of which are either a requireme...

Für den Einsatz von Geodaten im Schulbetrieb verfügen die wenigsten Schulen über ausrei- chende Hard- oder Software. Auch die mobilen Endgeräte der Schülerinnen und Schüler sind hierzu nur bedingt fähig, hier können jedoch zusätzliche Funktionen der Augmented und Virtual Reality (AR und VR) genutzt werden. In beiden Fällen liegt eine heterogene Aus...

The digital integrated learning environments (ILEs) for earth observation described in this article are bringing the complex topic of earth observation into classrooms. They are intended to give pupils with no prior experience in remote sensing the opportunity to solve tasks with earth observation data by using the same means that professionals hav...

Despite the deplorable condition of slums, it still harbors most of the urban population and may continue to do so, especially in Africa where slum growth is on a par with urban growth. This is the case in Lagos, a megacity reportedly dominated by slum dwellers, with limited knowledge on residential choices of slum dwellers and its contribution to...

This article provides an overview of worldwide web and e-Learning resources for Earth Observation (EO) education for secondary schools. The main EO education initiatives supported by international, EU and national organizations. The article elaborates on future prospects of EO education in the education system its relevance for the society and its...

Observations in thermal infrared (IR) contribute substantially to the understanding of the global fluxes of energy and matter between Earth’s surface, ocean and atmosphere. Key parameters derived from such observations are Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land Surface Emissivity (LSE). These variables are important...

Careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), although attractive in theory, are not popular with young pupils; this leads to a severe STEM manpower shortage in Germany that will increase over time. In order to motivate pupils to consider a STEM career, both hard and soft skills play an important role. The project KEPLER ISS...

Demographic forecasts put Lagos as one of the cities with the highest population growth. Past trends show correlations between urban growth and slum growth, thereby creating a major challenge for sustainable city planning. This study explores the drivers of slum development in Lagos, and simulates scenarios for slum growth through coupling logistic...

A new elective school subject called 'Geography-Physics' was developed by the Universities of Bonn and Bochum in cooperation with a German high school. With a focus on remote sensing, the modules of this STEM subject convey information, and present methodology and applications. There are two main sections: the physics of remote sensing, including b...

Hyperspektraldaten finden selten bis gar nicht Einzug in den Schulunterricht, obwohl diese zahlreiche curriculumsnahe Anwendungsgebiete haben, beispielsweise die Unterscheidung von Schwebstoffen bis hin zu verschiedenen Algenarten in Trinkwasserreservoiren. Dies liegt zum einen an ihrer schlechten Verfügbarkeit, da es wenige Hyperspektralsensoren g...

A new elective school subject called “Geography-Physics” was developed by the Universities of Bonn and Bochum in cooperation with a German high school. The STEM subject focuses on remote sensing to convey information, methodology, and application. There are two main sections: the physical basis of remote sensing, including both mathematics and comp...

Despite good working and career conditions in many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields in Germany, few pupils decide to take up a higher education or training and subsequently pick a career in these fields. The result is a STEM worker shortage on all education levels in Germany that is projected to increase in the coming...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst's perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

Das Projekt Columbus Eye / KEPLER ISS hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die MINT-Bildung an Schulen mit Bildern aus dem All zu verbessern, und stellt dafür digitale Lehreinheiten bereit. Diese fördern das wissenschafts-propädeutische Lernen und motivieren Schülerinnen und Schüler, sich stärker mit MINT-Themen auseinanderzusetzen und diese als Berufsfelder...

Geography is considered a subject of the humanities in many curricula. Important basic knowledge about physical geography is given barely any time, nor to the methodology to observe and analyse changes in the physical environment. Remote sensing is one of the most important fields of geographical methods as it allows to observe all spheres of the e...

Das Projekt Columbus Eye und sein Nachfolger KEPLER ISS haben sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die MINT-Bildung an Schulen mit Bildern aus dem All zu verbessern, und stellen dafür interaktive, interdisziplinäre und intermediale Lehreinheiten zur Verfügung. Diese fördern das wissenschafts-propädeutische Lernen und motivieren Schülerinnen und Schüler, sich stä...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst’s perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst’s perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

The contribution demonstrates the application possibilities of remote sensing in secondary STEM education. It is shown how propaedeutic learning and pupils’ methodological competences are emphasized by applying digital image processing techniques and real data of earth observation satellites and experimental photography onboard the International Sp...

“You realise that the earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock, that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German Astronaut Alexander Gerst’s perspective on earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home planet...

Upgrading all slums in Lagos by 2030 will an ambitious task, given that more than 70% of its residents resides in slums. Furthermore, there is no recent study identifying neither the slums nor their temporal growth/development pattern in Lagos that can backstop any slum management initiative. This study aims to contribute by applying object-based i...